After several months of pursuing the whereabouts of "Viodentia," Microsoft has submitted a Notice of Dismissal, removing all claims against "Viodentia." The reason for the dismissal was due to the fact that Microsoft was unable to locate "Viodentia" for prosecution.

The software giant went after FairUse4WM and "Viodentia" claiming that the creator of the tool had infringed on copyright laws. According to the dimissal, Microsoft said:

Please take notice that plaintiff Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") respectfully dismisses all of its claims, without prejudice, against John Does 1-10 a/k/a "viodentia." Microsoft was unable to locate these defendants through discovery and therefore could not serve them with process.

quote: Casual-copy "pirating" will increase with non-DRM music, that is a fact.

I personally very much doubt that will happen. For non-DRM music to increase casual-copy pirating, the people involved would have to belong to all three of the following groups:

(a) they download music over the internet(b) they wish to share that music with other people, either online or offline(c) they are unaware of P2P/file-sharing software and that a very large selection of music is available and freely exchanged using them

It is highly unlikely that people who fall into categories (a) and (b) they download music and want to share it with other people, also belong to (c) being unaware of file-sharing software and that music can be found with most of them.

Granted, there may be a few people who actually do fall into all three categories and the only reason they don't pirate their music is because of the DRM-protection on most legal downloads, but there are far more people who download pirated music because they want to avoid the DRM on legal downloads.

Why? I think there are a lot of people who are in (a) and (b), and who would share non-DRM downloads, whereas with DRM downloads, they would not be able to.

The fundamental problem is that most people think that if it is possible to copy a file, then it is legal. Therefore, when they purchase DRM-free content, they will be inclined to share it. Record companies know this and plan this into their marketing strategies and cost decisions.

Your argument that people who used their own money to buy legal DRM-free music will share/pirate it to anyone because they might think it can be legally freely exchanged (despite the fact that they had to pay to receive it) is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Quite apart from the fact that they paid to download it, it is made quite clear to users of non-DRM paid for music downloads that it is illegal to give a copy of the file to other people. The only people inclined to share them would be those who knowingly break the law already, and they are already downloading files using P2P networks.

You might want to concede defeat on this one, TomZ, because your stance is fundamentally flawed.

DRM serves no purpose in preventing casual-copying because almost everyone who wants to casually copy is already doing so over P2P networks, but deters people from legally paying to download music because of the restrictions the DRM imposes.

People who shared MP3s a few years ago with Napster did not have the option then to download them legally. They do now, or at least will have when legal paid-for MP3 services are readily available.

That means that although they may have originally obtained many of their MP3 files through Napster and other copyright-infringing P2P networks, those who switch to buying their MP3s legally will most likely have decided to stop using P2P software for sharing music altogether. Because of this, non-DRM legal music downloads could actually directly reduce piracy because many people will give up using P2P software when they can obtain the music in unprotected MP3 format legally.

There will still be plenty of people sharing MP3s on P2P networks, however they will be people who are never going to buy them from legal services anyway. But by offering legal DRM-free downloads, you give people who want the freedom of music in MP3 format the option to switch away from P2P networks.